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If that's the case I made a mistake in my translation. I thought he meant by shadows, all the thief fans around here who came back on the game thanks to this patch. Turns out it would be these object shadows from sunlight which would have been recovered.

That's not hidden. 0x14A701 is a location in the file. You can open the new .exe with a hex editor (I use XVI32), and tell it to go to that location. The value there is 02, so change it to 01. It's an easy thing to do but all those hexadecimal values can be a bit daunting at first. Backups can help with that.

edit: I think I misunderstood what wdog and Vae meant about hidden messages etc. I see now that the instructions are clear but their purpose was hidden.

Sweet zombie jesus!
A huge thanks to our unidentified friend for this.
I did notice something odd though, If you pick up food your inventory only scrolls through 1 or 2 items. Drop or use the food and the whole inventory is back.

SS2 Stereo 3D

Originally Posted by Fafhrd

Does surround sound work for anybody using OpenAL? I'm using HDMI out via the ATI on-board hi-def sound controller, and when I switch the demo to OpenAL + EAX it's only stereo (it's mono in no acceleration or regular hardware acceleration modes). Tried speaker settings in both quadrophonic and 7.1 and no difference. And it's using Generic Software Device already.

Otherwise everything worked great, and since it uses a D3D9 renderer now I was even able to turn on stereo 3D, which looked pretty sweet.

[edit]Okay, surround works with OpenAL and my X-fi. I guess it just doesn't like the AMD HDMI Output. Lame. Will have to get an optical cable and run that to the receiver.

Hey Fafhrd,

Are you using nvidia 3d vision kit for stereo 3D? I've spent the last couple of days trying to get it to work but have had no success. Is there anything you had to configure to get it working or did it work right off the bat? If anyone has any tips for me I'd surely appreciate it, thanks all!

No longer have to mess with re-registering video codecs, setting core affinity, and installing DDFix.
No longer have to wait through that annoying resolution-change pause when switching back and forth between game and menus.
Can set higher screen resolutions than DX6 supported, and directly in the game.
Can scale up HUD elements independently of screen resolution.
Better frame rate.
Renderer now runs 32-bit internally, so less texture posterization.
Star size now resolution-independent.
Less banding on sky horizon gradients.
Square and pixel particles now render as discs.
Large disc particles now smooth instead of banded.
Can now save screenshots as PNGs (and they go in their own folder now).
Better mantling.
Better ladder handling.
More sound channels.
Built-in FM manager.

Yeah, gee, nothing to get excited about there.

Congratulations sir. You understand this patch better than I do! With your gracious explanation of features, and of my complete idiocy...I am now as excited as the rest! Cheers!

Some see that as a mixed blessing. I've noticed that the fires in Finals now look clunky & ugly because of this. I used pixel particles for special effects a lot, and this change is not good from my perspective. I now have to redo all my particle effects to make them look again the way I want them to. Grumble, grumble.

I used pixel particles for special effects a lot, and this change is not good from my perspective.

Pixel particles are godawful, because they are, indeed, precisely one pixel. This means that their apparent size is resolution-dependent. A pixel particle effect that's perfectly clear at 1024x768 would look ridiculously chunky at 640x480, and nearly invisible at 1920x1200 or higher. Good riddance to them.

Aaaah, that would explain why it looked like the sky was going by so fast in Return to the Cathedral. The stars weren't moving any faster than they otherwise would- but they had a lot more pixels to cover, so I could actually see the pixels move every second.

Pixel particles are godawful, because they are, indeed, precisely one pixel. This means that their apparent size is resolution-dependent. A pixel particle effect that's perfectly clear at 1024x768 would look ridiculously chunky at 640x480, and nearly invisible at 1920x1200 or higher. Good riddance to them.

They have their place and their uses. I'm just saying that clearly design decisions were made, most of which make everyone happy, some of which don't. I don't like all the extra work that is now required for fix my mission because of that decision. I really like most everything else I've seen. But that one decision is not an unmitigated improvement. There are costs to every mission which used pixel particles in a changed visual impact. Individual mission authors will have to decide if they can live with the results or not. Me, I'm going to have to fix it in my mission. So technically, yes, there were drawbacks to pixels as it was, but there are different drawbacks to the way it now is. So is this better than before all told? Absolutely. The improvements are awesome. I just don't think that the right solution was to change pixels to something else arbitrarily for all missions. Better would have been to just add new capabilities and not take any away. It wasn't broken. It didn't need that fix. That's just my opinion. You have yours.

I don't like all the extra work that is now required for fix my mission because of that decision.

You're still not getting it. If you were using pixel particles for an effect, it was already broken, because pixel particle effects at modern resolutions are invisible. Or were you planning on distributing your mission with a "BEST PLAYED AT 800x600" warning, like the FM equivalent of a GeoCities site?

No one is "required" to fix their missions as a result of particles appearing larger (or perhaps smaller). It's strictly optional.

Encountered what may be an issue with ropes: grabbing hold of one can kill you! That said, I have no way to confirm that it's an issue introduced with 1.19, and I couldn't reproduce it, so I can't test whether it's the result of some interaction with the new mantle code (which I have enabled) or not. Has anyone ever been killed as a result of jumping onto a rope pre-1.19?

No one is "required" to fix their missions as a result of particles appearing larger (or perhaps smaller). It's strictly optional.

What? The author may feel that they need to fix it for their own satisfaction. It's not uncommon for a creator to feel that way. Of course it's not coming from some person beyond the author him/herself.

Anyway it's fine. LarryG can update his missions to get the aesthetic look he wants -- it's a little work -- but it'll work out.

I'm going to add something here from the multiplayer thread. It seems Tos's multiplayer is not compatible with 1.19 at the moment, and we're not sure if we can get back in touch with Tos to make it so. But if the 1.19 dev(s) happen read this, and if they're thinking about a future update, it'd be cool if they could either make sure it's compatible with MP, or even better, integrate Tos's work into a future update so T1 & T2 can be made multiplayer if someone turns on the option.

Edit: Of course for that latter option, the team would have to contact Tos behind the scenes to get his sourcecode & so they can work together on it. That's what I was thinking.